Development & extremism

Wedged between China and Pakistan, Ladakh's security rests as much on a prosperous, trusting population as on troops: border villagers are the Army's eyes and ears.

Border Area Development Programme

• Run by the MHA since 1986-87 for villages near the international border: roads, schools, health, water and livelihoods; 38,715 projects worth ₹7,935 crore completed in 16 States and 2 UTs.
• The Vibrant Villages Programme (2023) adds connectivity, tourism and livelihoods in northern-border blocks, including Ladakh, to check out-migration.

Army's civic action

• Operation Sadbhavana: seven Army Goodwill Schools in Ladakh (2023), medical and veterinary camps, women's vocational centres and educational tours for the young.
• Local recruitment into the Ladakh Scouts, porter and road-building work and disaster relief bring jobs and goodwill.

Sixth Schedule demand

• Since UT status in 2019, the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance have sought Sixth Schedule protection for land, jobs, culture and a fragile ecology.
• Issues: the Schedule now covers tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram only; extension needs a constitutional amendment; security sensitivities on a two-front border.
• Middle path: the 2025 domicile and reservation regulations, framed through the MHA's High-Powered Committee; stronger Hill Councils, statutory land and job safeguards and sustained dialogue can follow.

Development with dignity, border programmes plus credible safeguards, keeps Ladakh's people at the centre of national security.

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Left Wing Extremism is the Maoist armed movement, traced to the 1967 Naxalbari uprising, that seeks to overthrow the State by force while feeding on grievances over land, forests and exclusion.

What LWE is and how it hurts people

• The CPI (Maoist)-led insurgency concentrated in the forested tribal belts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra and Telangana — the 'Red Corridor'.
• Violence: killings of villagers branded 'informers', IED blasts, extortion and the destruction of schools, roads and mobile towers; violence peaked in 2010 with 1,936 incidents.
• Development deficit: welfare, health and education blocked, displacement, and tribal communities caught between insurgents and security forces.

Measures to eliminate it

• Security: the National Policy and Action Plan (2015), the SAMADHAN doctrine, CAPF and CoBRA deployment, District Reserve Guards, fortified police stations and technology-led operations.
• Development: Special Central Assistance, roads and mobile towers in affected districts, Eklavya schools, bank branches and skill centres.
• Rights and trust: the Forest Rights Act, PESA, surrender-cum-rehabilitation policies and the choking of funding by investigating agencies.
• Outcome: affected districts fell from 126 in 2014 towards the target, set in August 2024, of a Naxal-free India by 31 March 2026 (since then, the government has reported no district as LWE-affected).

The insurgency's retreat must be followed by governance that fills the vacuum — land and forest rights, jobs and dignity for tribal communities.

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Militancy feeds on alienation, so lasting peace in Jammu and Kashmir depends on trust as much as on force.

Why hearts and minds matter

• An alienated population shelters militants and supplies recruits; trust in the state dries up both and turns residents into sources of intelligence.

Measures adopted

• Political and administrative: after Article 370 was read down in August 2019, the first District Development Council elections in 2020 completed the three-tier panchayat system and brought decisions closer to villages.
• Development: the Prime Minister's Development Package (2015), the Industrial Development Scheme (2021), road and rail infrastructure, and a tourism revival that creates local jobs.
• Youth: Himayat for skilling and placement, Udaan, the Prime Minister's Special Scholarship Scheme, Army Goodwill Schools, sports and cultural exchanges.
• Security with outreach: the Army's Operation Sadbhavana (schools, medical camps, women's skilling), community policing, and a surrender and rehabilitation policy.
• Governance: DBT-based welfare, grievance redress, and rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri Pandits and border villagers.

Limits

• Internet shutdowns, AFSPA-related grievances, youth unemployment and online radicalisation erode trust; outreach must be sustained and rights-sensitive.

Security operations create the space; consistent governance, jobs and respect for rights fill it with trust.

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Naxalism thrives where poverty, land and forest grievances and weak governance meet; the violence is the symptom, so the response must go beyond policing.

Emerging issues

• Root causes persist: tribal alienation, displacement for mines and dams, unimplemented forest and land rights, poor services and exploitation by contractors and officials.
• Shrinking but entrenched: only 46 districts reported LWE violence in 2021 against 96 in 2010 (MHA), yet a hard core in areas such as Dandakaranya and Jharkhand still uses forest terrain and IEDs to inflict losses on security forces.
• Finance and support: extortion of contractors and mining interests funds the movement, and urban support networks supply ideology and logistics.
• Rights concerns: operations that harm civilians or misuse the law deepen alienation and feed the insurgents' narrative.

A multilayered strategy

• Security layer: intelligence-led joint operations by State and central forces, better-trained and equipped State police, fortified posts and the SAMADHAN principles, including actionable intelligence, technology and cutting access to finance.
• Development layer: roads, mobile connectivity, schools, health and banking in affected districts, with the Aspirational Districts programme and central assistance for LWE areas.
• Rights and governance layer: implement the Forest Rights Act and PESA, fair land acquisition and rehabilitation, accountable local administration and quick redress of tribal grievances.
• Outreach layer: dialogue, an attractive surrender and rehabilitation policy, community policing and counter-narrative, and choking the flow of funds and arms.

Sustained security pressure, visible development and rights delivery, and the trust of local communities together can end the movement's appeal.

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Left-wing extremism (LWE) has taken root in the forested, mineral-rich tribal belts of Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal, where the State arrived late and thinly and grievances found an armed outlet.

Determinants

• Land and forest: displacement by mining, dams and industry with poor rehabilitation, alienation of tribal land, and weak recognition of forest rights.
• Development deficit: poverty, thin schools, health care, roads and mobile connectivity, youth unemployment, and exploitation by contractors and moneylenders.
• Governance gaps: absent or corrupt local administration, weak policing, and poor implementation of PESA, 1996 and the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
• Terrain and tactics: dense forests and hills give cover; extremists extort, coerce and exploit grievances, and slip across state borders.

Strategy: Government of India

• Fund and coordinate: special central assistance to the worst-hit districts, roads and mobile towers, and a unified command with the states; the SAMADHAN doctrine (2017) sets the security frame.

Strategy: civil administration

• Reach every village: schools, health centres, skilling and financial inclusion; full application of PESA and the Forest Rights Act; fair rehabilitation before projects; and grievance redress that works.

Strategy: security forces

• Hold ground: coordinated operations by CAPFs and state police, intelligence sharing, fortified police stations, technology, and strict respect for rights so that operations do not create new recruits.
• Surrender and rehabilitation schemes that offer a way out, and community outreach that builds trust.

Security operations create the space, but lasting peace comes from land and forest rights, roads, schools and responsive local governance.

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Police and public order are State subjects, so the Centre supplements the affected States through an integrated approach that pairs security with development and good governance, set out in the National Policy and Action Plan of 2015.

Security

• Central Armed Police Forces and India Reserve battalions, reimbursement of States' costs under the Security Related Expenditure scheme, police modernisation, helicopters, intelligence-sharing and inter-State coordination.
• SAMADHAN (2017): a doctrine spanning smart leadership, aggressive strategy, actionable intelligence, technology and choking Maoist finances.

Development

• Roads and telecom towers in affected districts, skill development, and Special Central Assistance for critical infrastructure in the worst-affected districts; the Aspirational Districts programme adds focus.

Rights and entitlements

• Implementing the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and PESA, 1996 in Scheduled Areas, and better delivery of MGNREGA, the public distribution system and schooling, to remove the grievances Maoists exploit.

Outreach

• Surrender and rehabilitation policies, counter-propaganda, and trust-building with alienated tribal communities.

Remaining challenges

• Uneven governance, land alienation and displacement, and weak coordination among States; the Home Ministry itself calls the approach holistic because force alone cannot end extremism.

Security clears the space and development and rights must fill it; the downward trend will hold only if governance reaches the last village.

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Mob violence is the unlawful use of force by a crowd against a person or group, usually on rumour or suspicion, which substitutes the crowd's verdict for the courts and the police.

Causes

• Rumour on social media: WhatsApp messages about child-lifters led to several people being beaten to death in Jharkhand in May 2017; forwarding outruns any police response.
• Identity-based vigilantism: self-styled cow protectors killed Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri (2015) and Pehlu Khan in Alwar (2017) and flogged Dalits in Una (2016); Junaid Khan was killed on a train near Ballabhgarh in June 2017.
• Impunity: slow trials, low conviction, police delay or complicity and political patronage teach crowds that violence carries no cost.
• Distrust of justice: crowds seek 'instant justice' against suspected thieves, rapists and witches, as when a rape accused was dragged from jail and lynched in Dimapur (2015).
• Crowd psychology: anonymity dissolves individual guilt, while prejudice, unemployment and frustration among young men supply the tinder.

Consequences

• Life and liberty: killings and injuries, fear among minorities and Dalits, families uprooted; Article 21 rendered hollow for the victims.
• Rule of law: the State's monopoly over force erodes, the police lose credibility, and each unpunished case invites the next.
• Social fabric: communal polarisation, cycles of retaliation and distrust between communities.
• Economy: cattle trade, dairy, leather and transport disrupted; investors and tourists read lynchings as State failure.
• Politics and image: governance discredited at home and India's human-rights record questioned abroad.

Way forward

• Prompt FIRs and fast-track trials, personal accountability of station officers and district magistrates, rumour-busting with platforms and local media, community policing and victim compensation (since then, the Supreme Court in Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) laid down preventive, remedial and punitive measures and urged Parliament to consider a special law).

Mob violence recedes only when policing is swift and impartial, officials answer for inaction, and rumour and hatred are countered before they turn into crowds.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.